u.s. girls In a Poem Unlimited (LP, £15.75)

label: 4ad

2017 marks a decade of U.S. Girls, the protean musical
enterprise of multi-disciplinary artist, Meg Remy. Today, Remy
presents her sixth studio album ‘In A Poem Unlimited’.
 Remy’s second release for 4AD, which also includes ‘Mad As
Hell’ - a clarion call for pacifism - was tracked in collaboration
with Toronto-based instrumental collective The Cosmic Range
and features arrangements by long-time contributors Maximilian
Turnball and Louis Percival. The dizzying buffet of live grooves
on ‘In A Poem Unlimited’ represents an inversion of the dusty,
sample-based minimal textures of ‘Half Free’, Remy’s euphoric
4AD debut. Steered into focus by Remy and mixer / coproducer
Steve Chahley, ‘In A Poem Unlimited’ features disco
employed as a protest vernacular (‘Mad As Hell’), as well as an
unrelenting assault (‘Time’); moody, slow-burning funk (‘Velvet
4 Sale’ and ‘L-Over’) and earnest synth anthems ‘Rosebud’ and
‘Poem’, which form the album’s emotional core.
 ‘In A Poem Unlimited’ features dark meditations reflecting
charged atmospheres that directly precede and follow acts of
violence. Many of the songs are character studies of women
grappling with power; how to gain and exert it spiritually, as
well as desperate strategies to mitigate its infliction. Remy also
rallies against the public lies told by political and religious
leaders and, more crucially, questions the lies we tell ourselves
in order to survive. While U.S. Girls, denoting the plural, is no
longer a misnomer, ‘In A Poem Unlimited’ may be Remy’s most
individually distilled protest to date.
 ‘In A Poem Unlimited’ album opener ‘Velvet 4 Sale’ concerns a
female narrator imploring another to buy a gun for protection,
impressing that the only way to change men is for women to
use violence. Remy says, “Men are lucky women (and children)
have yet to take up arms. And although I hope this never
happens and I completely disagree that violence is ever
effective, this very idea was ripe for a song.” Track Listing
1Velvet 4 Sale
2Rage of Plastics
3Mad As Hell
4Why Do I Lose My Voice When I Have Something to Say
5Rosebud
6Incidental Boogie
7L-Over
8Pearly Gates
9Poem
10Traviata
11Time